Effective diabetes care can only be achieved through working closely with your diabetes healthcare team ‐ they are there to support you in self‐managing your diabetes. The most important person in the team is you ‐ because the decisions made will affect you. Taking responsibility for your diabetes will enable you to manage your diabetes more effectively. Ask questions and request more information if you need to.
Getting the right health checks is vital as is taking the right medication. Anyone aged 40‐74 who has not had a free NHS health check in the last five years and has not been diagnosed with diabetes, kidney disease, heart disease or stroke is advised to get one. Ask your GP for more information.
1 Get the information you need. The more you know, the more confident you will become and the easier it will be to manage your diabetes.
2 Recognise your role: take some personal responsibility for managing your diabetes day‐to‐day.
3 Be honest: give accurate information about your health and how you are really feeling.
4 Set goals: put into everyday practice the goals you may have agreed in your care plan.
5 Examine your feet regularly between reviews, or ask someone you know to check them for you.
6 Ask for help if you are ill, and know the 'sick day rules'.
7 Know when, where and how to contact your diabetes healthcare team.
8 Attend your appointments or rearrange them as soon as possible.
9 Make a list of points to bring up at your appointments.
10 Carry some form of medical identification about your diabetes.
11 Discuss with your diabetes healthcare team if you are pregnant or planning to become pregnant, so that pre‐ and post‐pregnancy advice can be organised with your obstetric team.
12 Give feedback to your healthcare team about the treatment and care you have received.
Get practical tools on staying emotionally and physically well in the Diabetes UK Learning Zone.Go to Learning Zone.
Diabetes UK can take you through how to look after your diabetes, and look after yourself too. From how to check your blood sugars, to coping with all the emotions you might be feeling.
You can also find out about the latest treatments, like remission in Type 2 diabetes and islet transplants in Type 1 diabetes.
Self‐management means that people have to make choices and decisions about how to manage their life and their diabetes. Through good self‐management, if you have diabetes you can improve your quality of life and reduce the risk of developing complications. It can also help to prevent you needing to be admitted to hospital, or can ensure that when you do need to go into hospital, for whatever reason, you have a better experience, with a reduced length of stay.
But when diabetes is not well managed, it is associated with serious complications including heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney disease, nerve damage and amputations leading to disability and premature mortality.
The key self‐management activities specific to diabetes care and living with diabetes are:
Diabetes dramatically increases the risk of various cardiovascular problems, including coronary artery disease with chest pain (angina), heart attack, stroke and narrowing of arteries (atherosclerosis). If you have diabetes, you're more likely to have heart disease or stroke.
Long‐term complications of diabetes develop gradually. The longer you have diabetes ‐ and the less controlled your blood sugar ‐ the higher the risk of complications. Eventually, diabetes complications may be disabling or even life‐threatening. Possible complications include:
To enable people to self‐manage well requires support. The type of support you need will vary depending on how you are managing or whether you feel the need to access that support.
The following five courses are available:
Your GP Practice and Diabetes Hospital Services can refer you to these programmes but you can also self‐refer to the three X‐pert programmes above.
To self‐refer to the Diabetes Team, please complete the CLCH Hounslow Diabetes Intermediate Care Service Referral form.
Contact details:
The service looks after adults with diabetes referred by their GP and hospital diabetes services. It has close links with the Diabetes Foot Care Clinic at West Middlesex University Hospital and some patients with complex foot care problems are sometimes looked after by both services. Offers routine and 24 hour emergency appointments Monday to Friday.
The service offers the following:
Patients who have a low risk foot assessment and cannot reach their toenails or see well enough to cut their nails, can access Age UK Hounslow nail cutting services. Age UK Hounslow provides an affordable nail cutting service. Also a carer or a relative could assist with this.
For more information please contact Hounslow
AgeUK
Telephone: 020 8560 6969.
In North West London the Diabetes Retinal Screening Program is run by Health Intelligence.
Diabetic eye screening is not covered as part of your normal eye examination with opticians, only a selected number of opticians work alongside Health Intelligence to offer this service. Also remember, diabetes retinal screening does not look for other eye conditions and you should continue to visit your opticians regularly for an eye examination as well.
Diabetes Retinal Screening is offered every year to anyone with diabetes aged 12 and over. The program accepts referrals from GP practices and hospital diabetes services and you receive this check once a year. The program will write to your GP and to yourself with the results. A direct referral to eye hospital services will be made by the program if any problems are detected that might need more investigations or treatment.
People with diabetes often have complex physical and mental health issues, depression, anxiety and eating disorders are common among patients with diabetes. Left untreated, mental health problems can significantly reduce the motivation and energy to look after yourself and it can lead to poor management of diabetes leading to early complications.
Diabetes specific psychological and emotional difficulties can be improved with psychotherapy. This in turn can improve diabetes control and reduce complications.
Hounslow offers a variety of services to support patients with mental health difficulties:
If you are in crisis, feeling suicidal and need immediate help, then please do one of the following:
West Middlesex University Hospital Children Diabetes Services supports children and young adults with diabetes and their families.
This service is part of Children's Services (Paediatrics) at the West Middlesex University Hospital and is supported by consultant paediatricians with interest in diabetes, diabetes paediatric nurses, a diabetes psychologist and diabetes dieticians.
This service offers the following:
Contact information for West Middlesex University Hospital Children Diabetes Services:
The West Middlesex University Hospital Diabetes Adults Service provides a whole range of outpatient and inpatient services to people with diabetes. The service works closely with other hospital services to better serve the needs of people with diabetes attending the hospital.
The following services are provided:
Referrals to most of these clinics are via your GP, community clinics and hospital services:
Local prevalence: In 2016 the prevalence of diabetes recorded by a GP in Hounslow was 7.3% of the adult population (17 and over) this equates to 17,519 residents. The prevalence estimates of diabetes in Hounslow by National Cardiovascular Intelligence Network (NCIN) for 2016 is 9.6% (accounts for 23,125 people aged 17+) which means there are over 5,600 people with diabetes who are not diagnosed yet. Diabetes prevalence in Hounslow is predicted to increase to 10.8% in 2030.
A new campaign launched by the local Council and NHS urges local people with diabetes to think seriously about their health and reduce their risk of being severely affected by COVID‐19.
One in three people in the UK who have died from COVID‐19 had diabetes. Even when all the other risk factors are taken into account, research shows that higher blood glucose levels and obesity are linked to higher risk of more severe symptoms.
NHS Hounslow CCG and the Council want to support residents who have diabetes to access help available to them to reduce their risk. Video consultations and online appointments, as well as routine discussions with GPs, are available to ensure diabetes care continues throughout the pandemic; because it is important that those people at greater risk take actions to reduce their risk and protect their health.
Visit knowdiabetes.org.uk ‐ a free website for everyone living in the borough providing a range of support on healthy eating, being active and weight management for people with diabetes. It also provides information on how residents can access a range of informative courses including the free NHS Healthier You programme.
Information on Hounslow campaign urging people with diabetes to look after their health.